- Temps rose to 50 at O’Hare at 11:35pm last night—then tumbled to 34 at 6am, to 32 by 9am, 31 at noon and had fallen off to 30-deg by late Friday afternoon.
- WINDS have been howling—with gusts clocked to near 40 mph at O’Hare and Midway—but as high as 49 mph at Michigan City, IN, 47 mph at Rockford and 45 mph at Sugar Grove and Joliet.
- The pressure spread—what’s known as the “PRESSURE GRADIENT”–between a powerhouse winter storm with a central pressure at 989 mb(29.20″) and a strong Canadian high pressure with a central pressure of 1040 mb (30.71″) is driving the strong winds. And modeling shows this gradient is to hold well into the weekend. So we’ve not seen the last of the powerful wind gusts.
- The strong winds, gusting above 30 mph tonight and between 35 to 40 mph at times Saturday combined with temps predicted to drop to 15 by morning and rise no higher than 29 Saturday mean wind chills by morning will be flirting with ZERO—and will recover only to single digits Saturday.
- THIS IS QUITE A LATE SEASON COLD SPELL. Weekend temps will make this the 2nd coldest weekend of 2023 and the COLDEST WEEKEND HERE IN 8 WEEKS. The high temp Saturday is to come in nearly 20-deg below normal. Effectively, we have early January-level temps predicted Saturday—evening though we’re past mid-March. That’s not an every year occurrence.
- Saturday is to see a pool of VERY COLD TEMPS aloft which will produce explosive instability—the sort of set-up in which snow showers—even snow squalls are likely to begin sweeping the area late Saturday morning and afternoon. The burst of snow these snow showers may produce may well drop visibilities briefly and eve coat the ground with some snow in some areas.
- DESPITE THE WEEKEND CHILL—the ASTRONOMICAL START TO SPRING—the so-called VERNAL EQUINOX—takes place at 4:26 pm Monday. And there are growing indications a surge of warmer air could bring the Chicago area its first 60-deg temps Thursday next week as a rainy storm sweeps into the area. We’ve not had a 60-deg temp yet this year.
